The trade union movement represents the organized economic power of the workers… It is in reality the most potent and the most direct social insurance the workers can establish.
SAMUEL GOMPERSThe right to say the things which convey the new and yet unexpected thoughts, the right to say things, even though they do a wrong.
More Samuel Gompers Quotes
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All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with conflicts and battles of man’s prowess over man, of strife and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one nation over another. Labor Dayis devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race, or nation.
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Let social busybodies and professional “public morals experts” in their fads reflect upon the perils they rashly invite under this pretense of social welfare.
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In the last analysis, the welfare of the workers depends upon their own initiative. Whatever is done under the guise of philanthropy or social morality which in any way lessens initiative is the greatest crime that can be committed against the toilers.
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There are such wonderful possibilities in the life of each man and woman!
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Show me that product of human endeavor in the making of which the workingman has had no share, and I will show you something that society can well dispense with.
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The periods of unemployment accompanying depression in the business cycle . . . present a challenge to all our claims to progress, humanity, and civilization.
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The working people know no country. They are citizens of the world.
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No race of barbarians ever existed yet offered up children for money
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Workingmen are at the foundation of society.
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No lasting gain has ever come from compulsion.
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Do I believe in arbitration? I do. But not in arbitration between the lion and the lamb, in which the lamb is in the morning found inside the lion
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No human being is unimportant. My inspiration comes in opening opportunities that all alike may be free to live life to the fullest.
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You can’t weigh the soul of a man with a bar of pig-iron.
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What does labor want? We want more schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures.
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One fact stands out in bold relief in the history of man’s attempts for betterment. That is that when compulsion is used, only resentment is aroused, and the end is not gained. Only through moral suasion and appeal to man’s reason can a movement succeed.
SAMUEL GOMPERS